For Just That One Moment
by Zagzagael
Summary: Butch wakes up and doesn't know if he was dreaming or if he is dreaming.


_"The best thing about dreams is that fleeting moment, when you are between asleep and awake, when you don't know the difference between reality and fantasy, when for just that one moment you feel with your entire soul that the dream is reality, and it really happened."_

__Butch was wakened to the evening falling by the sound of the shutters lifting. He opened his eyes quickly as he was inclined to do most new evenings and realized right off that he felt as though he'd been hit by a steamroller. He rolled his head from side to side, flexing his broad shoulders, stretching down to the toes of his gunwales, pulled in a deep breath and got a lungful of air that reminded him of summers on the coast. And that was freakin' something new then, wasn't it.

"Butch?" A sleepy and very feminine voice beside his shoulder whispered into the dark and at that sound he was out of the bed as though the mattress had just combusted and he was knocking at the lamp to find the switch. The room illuminated and he stood naked as the day he came looking down at a vision of a female rising up out of the sheets - Venus on the half shell. Her voice had risen in pitch. "Butch! Are you alright? You look as though you've just seen a ghost! What is wrong, hellren?"

She had quickly gotten her feet on the floor and hair the colour of sunshine cascaded around her, hiding female attributes that he could just barely remember from a lifetime ago. At least it felt like another lifetime. He watched the expression on her beautiful face move from startled surprise to concern. She reached out a hand across the bed, her reach was short and she began moving around the end of the bed towards him.

He backed up faster than if she'd been a black mamba and found himself in the doorway of the bathroom, and kept taking steps backwards. Now she had both hands out and her face was a mask of fear. "Butch, are you ill? What is wrong? You're scaring me, darling."

He had backed himself up against the counter-top of the sink, his naked ass pressing into the cold marble, and he had to admit the backing-up strategy wasn't working. He was going to have to man up and begin getting answers. He just wasn't sure what questions he should be asking.

He held up a hand, the universal symbol for stop, and this slowed her progress towards him. She looked at the splayed fingers, the crooked pinky, and then wrapped both of her very small hands around his hand. "Do you want me to call for Havers?"

The doc? He didn't need a doctor but he was beginning to think he might need a psychiatrist. Or a swift kick to the head.

"Vishous?" he asked and the name fell from his mouth like a plea.

"You want me to get Vishous?"

He could only nod. Forcing himself to muteness because he had no freakin' idea what would come out of his mouth if he opened it again.

"Don't move, Butch. Just wait right there and I'm going to go knock on his door and I'll be right back."

Butch nodded again and watched the nude female move quickly out of the bathroom, running into the bedroom. He shook his head and caught the reflection of the movement from the corner of his eye. The wall behind him was mirrored and he turned quickly looking into his eyes. It was the same face he'd known since his transition staring back at him, busted up nose, short ginger hair, smattering of freckles. He leaned towards the glass, running his gaze over his face, his body. Behind him, in the mirror, he saw the female return. She had on a long robe now. He turned around towards her hearing her say V's name and that's when he saw his back in the mirror, saw the name engraved across his shoulders. His eyes widened and he stared. Hard. He lifted a hand over his shoulder, the tip of one thick finger tracing the curve of a letter S. His brows came down low over his eyes. He spelled it out, letter by letter, reversing it in his mind as his lips moved silently.

M A R I S S A

"Vishous is on his way right now." Her voice was shaking.

"Marissa?" He tried the name and his voice broke on the last syllable.

"Darling, hellren mine, yes yes, tell me what's wrong." She threw her small body into his arms and he had no choice but to catch her. She pressed herself against him, the female lines of her molding to the male lines of him, the firm breasts, the narrow waist, her hips.

"Everything is going to be alright," she said reassuringly into his chest.

He turned his head and took another look at her name scarred wide and broad and deep into his flesh. He didn't think so.

* * *

><p>Vishous was standing in the middle of the room. Butch had pulled on a pair of sweatpants before he arrived and was now sitting on the edge of the bed, hands gripped tight between his knees. It was the only posture he trusted himself to take, to keep his hands to himself, to keep from moving towards...well, it was all weirdness now.<p>

Marissa was quietly explaining the brief events of their waking to the big male. Butch looked up and saw V cast a quick glance his way and then back to the female. Then the vampire pulled a chair over closer to the bed and sat heavily, knees almost touching Butch. Butch felt a shiver move up the long length of his spine and he suppressed it with a quick grind of his teeth. One of his legs began to shake and he went with it, bouncing it rapidly on the ball of one foot.

"My man," V whistled, "you are seriously tense."

Butch looked at him, the familiar face, the goatee, the black hair, the tattoos, the diamond-colored eyes, his mouth. The long and achingly familiar column of the other male's throat. All he could do was nod in response. Tense wasn't even in the ballpark of the emotions he was feeling. Stretched tight with a come-along on one end and a herd of wild stallions on the other.

"Butch, can you tell me what this scene is? You seem..." V narrowed one eye and the trademark cocked brow went up over the other eye and Butch felt the breath leave his lungs. "Not okay. You seem not okay. True?"

He didn't trust his voice, so he barked out a low laugh and covered his eyes with one hand, shaking his head. He dropped his hand away, looking deep into Vishous' eyes. Yeah, not okay. At all. This was where the question was, but he felt a wash of fear at the answer.

With his light eyes trained on Butch, V spoke. "Marissa, why don't you give us a minute or two here. Maybe go next door see if Jane is still there."

_Who the hell was Jane?_Butch refused to look away from the other male's eyes, but out of his peripheral vision he saw Marissa walk to a closet, pull out some clothing items and hesitate at the door. Still V kept his gaze focused. She left and the door shut behind her.

Vishous put his hands on his knees, leaning forward slightly. "Take your time, big guy."

"V." Everything Butch had went into pronouncing that single letter.

Vishous raised both brows and Butch watched as he pulled the edge of his lower lip beneath his top teeth, assessing, he knew that look, assessing the sitch. "Right here, O'Neal."

Suddenly Butch stood and pushed his way past Vishous who stood quickly behind him. He paced the length of the room, then again, and one more time. Shaking his hands out, rolling his shoulders, breathing in as though he were about to be plunged into an ice bath. He stopped. "I'm okay. I, uh, I don't know. I woke up and things were upside down or some shit like that, but I get now that it's all good. I think, maybe I woke up from some kind of intense dream or something. You know? But I'm getting it now. Or something."

V shook his head. "Mmmm...not sure I'm ready to buy that just yet. What do you mean "upside down" and what kind of dream did you have? Marissa said you had no idea who she was."

Understatement of the year. He nodded. "Yeah, I guess she mighta thought that."

"Did you know who she was, cop?" V's voice was lethally quiet.

Butch looked at him, remembering his mate, and shook his head slowly no.

"Do you know who she is now?"

He raised his brows and considered. "My shellan?"

"Is she?"

"Is she what, V? My shellan? Well, I've got her name carved into my back so I'm gonna guess that yeah she is."

V fished his phone out of the deep front pocket of his black sweatpants and flipped it open.

"You need to make a phonecall?"

V looked at him and spoke into the phone. "I need a CAT scan scheduled like yesterday. We'll be down in less than twenty."

Butch raised both hands in surrender.

* * *

><p>They were walking, shoulder to shoulder, down the dimly lit hallway that led to the medical clinic beneath the mansion. Butch found that the nearness of the big male, the casual ease with which he had taken control of a very out-of-control situation, was calming him considerably. V had poured him a large glass of OJ in the kitchen of The Pit, maybe he thought Butch had suddenly become hypoglycemic? He drank it dutifully and continued to sidle away from the female and she continued to try to sidle up to him. V had picked up on that, too, and finally firmly walked Butch's drop-dead gorgeous mate to the front door and after a brief whispered conversation she was gone. Butch felt as though he could breathe again without fear of hyperventilating.<p>

Then Vishous encouraged Butch to pull on a t-shirt and some sneakers and the two of them set off.

Now Butch wanted nothing more than to just keep walking next to Vishous, perhaps back up to ground level, out the door, and into the night. Keep moving forward, away from whatever twilight zone he'd woken up to, into this newly fallen night, nose out some fucken lessers, slice-dice-inhale, and go to ground before sunrise tight in V's arms getting healed. Butch let his mind go there and felt small pinpricks of heat explode behind his ribcage.

But they stopped in a small waiting room.

"You must really wanta see that hamster runnin' on his wheel up here," Butch tapped his temple with a finger, "to miss First Meal, V."

V went very still, eyes appraising Butch. "So, me you know. Me you got no confusion about? How's that work?"

Butch ran a quick hand through his hair, holding fast to the back of his own neck. "In the dream, you were...we were..."

Before he could answer, a far door opened and a figure approached them. Butch studied the lab-coated woman as she drew closer, not even letting himself get surprised when she actually materialized into solid corporeal form beside V. It was just that kind of morning.

"_Leelan_, Butch is having a rough start to his day. I want you to take a look, take his vitals or whatever you do, maybe get some pictures."

At the utterance of the term of endearment, Butch did startle. Every pint of blood in his body tried bleeding into his head and he stumbled back half a step. V reached for him quickly and the warmth and strength of that familiar hand on his bicep almost took Butch down to his knees. Leelan?

"I think we need to find you a bed, cop. C'mon." And V manhandled Butch across the floor of the waiting room and through a doorway where the woman now stood holding the door open, ushering them into what Butch felt could only be Act II of this freaky ass night. He was pressed gently but firmly towards a hospital bed and he sat down hard, still wondering why his lungs didn't seem to want to be breathing in and out as they should be. His head was spinning.

He looked up at V who had backed up a step but still had his hand on him. That was good, that hand was good. It was definitely long overdue time for the question-answer session. He looked from V to the door where the woman wearing the lab coat was standing, examining him with her kind gaze. Why were all these females so beautiful and so kind? And who, sweet Virgin in the Fade, were they?

"That is," he motioned with his head, "she is, um your..."

V dropped his hand and backed up another step. Butch felt suddenly very alone in the room. The woman came to stand beside Vishous.

"Jane? My mate, my shellran. Butch? Are you saying you don't know Doc Jane?"

Butch narrowed his eyes, studying the woman, something was so familiar about her...he flipped through a mental photo album, a-ha! He smiled in relief. "Yeah, yeah, I do know her! She was the human, the heart surgeon, who worked on you when you got shot. I remember now." And then he felt the drenching freeze again. "But...you and her, you and she, her and you are...bonded?"

He watched as the two of them exchanged deadly serious looks. V tried to joke, "He was never a freakin' grammar professor."

The doctor spoke. "I'm going to go see if the radiology room is ready." V nodded in agreement and she turned and left but not before a lingering, long-fingered hand was pressed against the vampire's arm.

Butch watched her leave. Suddenly he, too, wanted to get up and walk out, even if he had to walk alone into the night.

* * *

><p>Two hours later he had been poked and prodded, weighed and measured, photographed and digitized, examined and re-examined and the three of them were now sitting in Doc Jane's office.<p>

The doctor, V's shellan of all things, was seated behind her desk. He was sitting in a rather uncomfortable chair in front of her desk and Vishous was wearing a small path into the rather expensive oriental carpet.

Jane flipped shut his medical record file and looked at him, then at V, then back to him, then down at her hands. She shook her head slowly.

"What? Just what is it?" V asked impatiently.

"It's nothing. If anything he's stronger, healthier, more robust than the rest of you. Call it hybrid vigor, if you like, but there is no medical reason that he would be experiencing..." she paused and finally looked at him instead of V, "what exactly are you experiencing, Butch?"

Butch was done with the examining. "I woke up from a dream. That's all there is to it."

"And how did this dream cause you to forget Marissa, forget," she shrugged prettily, "me?"

There it was then, and Butch had no idea on the moonlit earth how to explain it. He looked fiercely over at V who stopped pacing and answered the look. "It didn't feel like a dream. It felt like reality."

Doc Jane's tone was firm. "But that feeling usually lasts for just that one moment upon waking, Butch."

He nodded slowly, gaze still locked on V. "This time it was different. This time it felt like this reality was the dream."

"We're getting that, cop. What, exactly, were you dreaming about?"

Butch looked at him across an unreachable distance. "A different kind of life." He turned back to look at the doctor. "I appreciate your concern, both of you. And all of your expertise, Doc, but I think I'm going to go get some grub now and chill a bit."

Butch knew that when life handed you lemons you just shut up and ate your damn lemons. He could do that.

"C'mon, V, let's go see if we can't scramble an egg or thirteen."

Jane stood, shaking her head, dismissing them both. "This isn't over yet, but I'm going to Safe Place now. I'll see you at Last Meal."

She walked towards Vishous and Butch turned on his heel and moved into the hallway. Lemons might taste sour and sure as hell would be bitter going down, but he wasn't going to rub the juice into his wound.

He looked down the long hallway and began walking.

"Butch!" Behind him V called out. He kept moving. "Slow up." Still his feet would not stop, he was having to fight the impulse to open up and just run. "Dhestroyer!" Vishous commanded but Butch walked on. Finally the male caught up and fell into stride beside him. The two of them walked on in silence.

* * *

><p>"So we've got tonight off, means some Lessers get an undeserved reprieve." Butch was mopping up the last of his breakfast with a thick slab of wheat toast.<p>

"Oh, I think our Brothers can deal." V finished his third cup of coffee.

Butch looked at him. "But we're formidable. Together."

Vishous nodded. "Undeniably."

Butch pushed himself back from the table and crossed his massive arms over his chest, head tilted sideways, looking over at V. "When we're not all schmaltzed out on our mates, I guess."

"What in hell is that supposed to mean?"

"You tell me."

"You think I'm soft because I bonded with Jane?" V's voice was becoming a growl. "What's that make you, marshmallow, cuz nobody - and I mean nobody - is as turned inside out on a female as you are."

"That right?" Butch felt his voice sharpen.

"It is. But maybe you don't remember that, what with your daytriping into amnesia land."

"Funny."

"I don't want to fight with you, cop, and I seriously do not want to discuss my love life with you. At least not today."

"No fight. But I don't need a photographic memory to see that this love has made you vulnerable."

"Yeah, love can do that, make you vulnerable, but it does not translate to weak." Butch could hear the control V was using in his voice, his words.

"Love," Butch spit the word out, rising to his feet, "can fucken light you up from the inside, set you on fire, burn all weakness out, and leave you tempered just like the daggers you make. Fierce, sharp, unfuckingbreakable. That's what love can do."

"What the fuck are you saying, Butch?" V was on his feet now. "I have not been weakened by Jane, by my feelings for her. I'm stronger than I've ever been."

"Really? V, really?"

"Fuck that noise."

"You have no idea how strong you could be." Butch was trembling with emotion, his hands fisted at his sides, leaning over the table, into V's heat.

"And you do?"

Butch raised a single brow in answer. A flash of confusion and then recognition in V's eyes, in the set of his mouth.

"You think I'm weak, try me."

And with that Butch launched himself across the table, over plates and silverware. V met him and they were down on the ground. Long limbs tangling, chests pounding, fangs bared and lips drawn back. Butch lowered his head into V's shoulder and pushed hard, the muscles in his back contracting with the effort and beneath him V arched up into the pressure, wrapping his arms around Butch and flipping him over onto his back. Fast as a lightning whip, Butch had an arm up and around Vishous's neck, pulling back, turning them both onto their sides, tightening the hold, grabbing for his wrist with his free hand. V twisted himself backwards, dragging Butch with him and Butch took advantage of that to straddle the bigger male and came down heavily on him, locking his ankles beneath V's knees. Pressing the advantage, spreading his arms wide, hands fisted around V's wrists.

A pause like a loaded weapon.

"Butch?" V breathed out heavily, his gaze smoldering.

Butch nodded, recognizing, remembering. "Vishous."

Then he leaned in and caught V's lips with his own, panting into the other male's mouth. V wrenched his arms free and reached up for Butch's face, his ears, the back of his neck, pulling him closer and Butch closed his eyes, overcome by an emotion he could not name. For just that one moment, the dream was reality.

* * *

><p>Butch was wakened to the evening falling by the sound of the shutters lifting. He opened his eyes quickly as he was inclined to do most new evenings and realized right off that he felt as though he'd been hit by a steamroller. He rolled his head from side to side, flexing his broad shoulders, stretching down to the toes of his gunwales, pulled in a deep breath and got a lungful of air that smelled of sweat and semen and musky cinnamon.<p>

"Butch?" V's voice growled into his ear. He recognized the familiar sound of his mate waking with a fierce need.

He turned towards him, a tidal wave of love and lust and need and want. He found V's mouth easily in the darkened room and kissed him deeply, pulling a kind of pleading noise out of the other male's mouth. Suddenly, he sat up, black sheets falling away, and he climbed to his feet. V willing lights on in the room, Butch threw open the bathroom door, rushing in, twisting his body as he did, one hand splay fingered on the mirror, the other up on his bicep, pulling himself by the ball of his shoulder around towards the reflection. There, just there, across the wide span of his shoulders.

V I S H O U S

V was standing in the doorway. "You okay?"

Butch nodded, then laughed. "Yeah. More than."


End file.
